Books like

Books like L'Avversario

12 books with a reading profile close to L'Avversario by Emmanuel Carrère. Deep and inward-looking; a moderate read.

1

Crossroads

by Jonathan Franzen

Also deep and inward-looking · narrative, psychology

In suburban Chicago on a single day in 1971, the Hildebrandt family faces individual crises of faith and morality.
2

Runaway: Stories

by Alice Munro

Also deep and inward-looking · narrative, psychology

Alice Munro's collection has eight stories, many set in rural Ontario.
3

Fates and Furies

by Lauren Groff

Also deep and inward-looking · narrative, psychology

The novel documents the twenty-four-year marriage of Lotto and Mathilde Satterwhite, beginning with their impulsive college graduation wedding and following their ascent into the New York elite.
4

The Lying Life of Adults

by Elena Ferrante

Also inward-looking · narrative, psychology

Giovanna, a teenager living in an upper-class neighborhood in Naples, overhears her father compare her appearance to his estranged sister, Vittoria.
5

Breasts and Eggs

by Mieko Kawakami

Also deep and inward-looking · narrative, psychology

Natsu is a struggling writer living in Tokyo who receives a visit from her older sister, Makiko, and her niece, Midoriko.
6

Hot Milk

by Deborah Levy

Also deep and inward-looking · narrative, psychology

Sofia Papastergiadis, a frustrated doctoral student, travels with her mother, Rose, to a private medical clinic in Almería, Spain.
7

Skippy Dies

by Paul Murray

Also deep and inward-looking · narrative, psychology

Skippy is a fourteen-year-old boarding school student at Seabrook College, a Catholic school in Dublin, who dies in the first pages after collapsing in a doughnut shop.
8

Lady Oracle

by Margaret Atwood

Also inward-looking · narrative, psychology

Joan Foster fakes her own death by drowning in Lake Ontario to escape a messy entanglement of secret identities.
9

The Idiot

by Elif Batuman

Also inward-looking · narrative, psychology

Set in 1995, the narrative follows Selin, a linguistics student navigating her first year at Harvard.
10

The Days of Abandonment

by Elena Ferrante

Also deep and inward-looking · narrative, psychology

When Mario abruptly announces he is leaving their fifteen-year marriage, Olga is stranded in a Turin apartment with two young children and a dog.
11

Quan érem orfes

by Kazuo Ishiguro, Xavier Pàmies Giménez

Also inward-looking · narrative, psychology

In the English translation by Xavier Pàmies Giménez, Christopher Banks is a celebrated London detective during the 1930s who remains fixated on the disappearance of his parents in Shanghai decades earlier.
12

Sing, Unburied, Sing

by Jesmyn Ward

Also deep and inward-looking · narrative, psychology

Thirteen-year-old Jojo lives with his grandparents and toddler sister on the Mississippi Gulf Coast while his mother, Leonie, struggles with drug addiction and grief.

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